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Events Horizon – May 23, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:39:31 +0000

Hello and welcome to Guitar Noise Events Horizon for May 23, 2012. As you hopefully know, this is our weekly blog post tp give you news and pertinent information concerning upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

In the Guitar Noise community, we believe that the true power, wonder and beauty of music comes when it gets shared with the world. So whenever you’re out playing, we’d really like to do is to help promote your shows, whether it’s in a stadium or at a ten-seat coffee house. Not only is it a great way to help support each other, it’s also a terrific way to meet more musicians!

So (usually!) every Wednesday we (try to) post a blog about the gigs we know are coming up in the following ten days or so. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to attend a show should they happen to be in your corner of the world! So here are some places you might check out (and be sure to write in to let us know of and post some more!):

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Yes, it’s Thursday again so come on by The Parlor’s weekly open mic, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Singer / songwriter, Marilyn Miller hosts the evening in this incredibly friendly little coffee house. Runs from 7 to 9 PM and all ages are welcome.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Tom Hess and Rhapsody of Fire hit the United States at last! They’ll be playing tonight at The Trocadero in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and you definitely want to be there if you can!

Longtime Guitar Noise Forum member Randy Reeves and his new band, the Coulee Rock Invaders, have a gig at Augie’s Bar, located at 1614 Commercial Street in Bangor, Wisconsin. Not sure when the show starts, so get there early!

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Longtime Guitar Noise contibutor, guitar teacher and all-around good guy Tom Hess is currently touring the world with Rhapsody of Fire. And, from now through June, you can catch them here in the United States! Tonight they’re playing at Soundstage in Baltimore, Maryland. Be sure to say “hi” to Tom from us!

There’s a full house of artists this week at The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Tonight features Jenny O., Chris Garneau, Osei Essed and Gregory & the Hawk. Show runs from 7 to 9 PM.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Rhapsody of Fire, with longtime GN contributor Tom Hess on guitar, visits Massachusetts! The band has a show tonight at The Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Tom Hess and Rhapsody of Fire hit the Big Apple with a show tonight at Gramercy Theatre in New York City, New York.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Rhapsody of Fire hops across the border to continue its North America tour with a show Club Soda in Montreal, Canada.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Quebec City get a visit from Rhapsody of Fire, with longtime GN contributor Tom Hess on guitar, as they play a show at The Imperial de Quebec in Quebec City, Canada.

And The Parlor’s weekly open mic, hosted by singer / songwriter, Marilyn Miller, takes place tonight from 7 to 9 PM. This friendly little coffee house is located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York and all ages are welcome.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Tom McLaughlin and Life Is Drama kick off the month of June with a big show at Ballydoyles, at 5157 Main Street in Downers Grove, Illinois.

Meanwhile, to the north and east, Tom Hess and Rhapsody of Fire, are theying at the Mod Club in Toronto, Canada.

Sunday, June 4, 2012

Cleveland will be rocking to Rhapsody of Fire, with longtime GN contributor Tom Hess on guitar, as they play a show at Peabody’s in Cleveland, Ohio.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Events Horizon – Wednesday, May 16, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:43:54 +0000

Welcome to the May 16, 2012 posting of Events Horizon, our weekly Guitar Noise blog post where you can get news and pertinent information concerning upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Singer / songwriter Marilyn Miller hosts the weekly open mic at The Parlor, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. This incredibly friendly event runs from 7 to 9 PM and all ages are welcome.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Southern Roots, with GN community member Doug James on guitar, have an 8 PM show at the Tuckahoe Moose Lodge, located at 4366 Springfield Road in Glen Allen, Virginia. The music runs until 11 PM.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

The Wishing Well is back on the Continent with a show at See La Vie, Alte Landstrasse 26 in Horgen, Switzerland. That’s pretty close to Zurich, in case you’re in the area. Shw starts at 8:00 PM.

The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York is back up and running! This week you can catch Kirsten and Dave. Show runs from 7 to 9 PM.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Friday, May 25, 2012

Tom Hess and Rhapsody of Fire hit the United States at last! They’ll be playing tonight at The Trocadero in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and you definitely want to be there if you can!

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Rhapsody of Fire, with longtime GN contributor Tom Hess on guitar, visits Massachusetts! The band has a show tonight at The Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Events Horizon – Wednesday, May 9, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:06:31 +0000

Hello and my apologies to everyone who may have been looking for our May 2, 2012 post of Guitar Noise’s “Events Horizon.” Truth be told, it was sometime last Sunday when I thought to myself, “did I ever post that last week?” and then, realizing that indeed I had not, decided to just wait until this week to post a new one.

So, anyway, welcome to the belated first Event’s Horizon for May, 2012. As you know, this is (supposed to be!) our weekly Guitar Noise blog post where you can get news and pertinent information concerning upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

TONIGHT! Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The Fallen Starlets have a gig at Savannah’s Dublin Underground, at 1 South Pearl Street in Albany, New York. It’s an 8 PM start for this show.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Meanwhile, over at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, you can find Sammy Brown playing at the Gypsy Joynt, located at 293 Main Street – right in the middle of town! This is a fantastic place to eat, drink and have a great time. Show starts at 7:30 PM.

Friday, May 11, 2012

North Carolina’s hottest rocking band, Doesn’t Madder, has a gig at Risto’s Restaurant, 123 North Center Street in Statesville, North Carolina. The music starts at 9 PM.

Tom McLaughlin and Life Is Drama get the opening slot at Shark City (located at 2240 Bloomindale Road in Glendale Heights, Illinois) for Hal Spark’s band “Zero 1.” They are the first of four bands playing that night and their 45 minute set should probably start at 10 PM.

Longtime Guitar Noise community member Doug (“Moonrider”) James and his band Southern Roots are playing at the Rocks River Roadhouse and Rockahock Campgrounds at 1428 Outpost Road in Lanexa, Virginia. They always put on a terrific show, so make a point to see them if you’re in the area.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Doesn’t Madder returns to Tommy’s SportsBar, located at 110 Valencia Place in Lenoir, North Carolina. The music goes from 9 until they close the place down for the night. Or morning, as the case may be!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Australian band The Wishing Well have an 8 PM show at The Ballroom, located at 15 Orange Street in Canterbury, England.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Friday, May 18, 2012

Southern Roots, with GN community member Doug James on guitar, have an 8 PM show at the Tuckahoe Moose Lodge, located at 4366 Springfield Road in Glen Allen, Virginia. The music runs until 11 PM.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York is back up and running! This week you can catch Kirsten and Dave. Show runs from 7 to 9 PM.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Counterpoint – Part 2

Tom Serb — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:23:42 +0000

Now that we’ve got the basic terminology behind us, on to writing counterpoint melodies.

The big breakthrough for Fux was dividing counterpoint lines into what he called “species”. In Fux’ view, there are five species of counterpoint:

Note against note
Two notes against one note
Four notes against one note
Offset melodies creating suspensions
“Florid” counterpoint, consisting of all the others

Besides dividing an individual counterpoint into species, Fux divided counterpoints by the number of voices presented. In other words, he teaches first through fifth species counterpoint in two voices, then first through fifth species in three voices, and then he uses a fourth voice for all the species.

The species approach to counterpoint is used by most (but not all) counterpoint teachers. The alternative approach is called “direct” counterpoint. The logic of direct counterpoint says “Hey, it’s going to take me years to master each additional voice – how can I write for eight or ten voices right now, like Palestrina did?”.

But I’m not going to go there. For one thing, the guitar doesn’t have eight or ten strings. For another, I’ve read all these very academic texts, but I’ve never actually written eight or ten part counterpoint. So I’ll just show you what I actually know.

Counterpoint is traditionally done with a very slow melody – typically whole notes. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, it makes it easy to actually hear what third species (four notes against one, or four quarter notes against a whole note) sounds like; if you used sixteenth notes against a quarter note, it might become a sonic blur. The second reason is traditional: counterpoint originated as an alternative melody set against a Gregorian chant.

I’m not going to do that to you, because you probably aren’t writing Gregorian chant.

But I am going to start with first species two-voice counterpoint, because it gives us a simple foundation we can build on.

We’ll start with a simple melody. I’ll use D-A-F-G-F-E-D for our starting melody:

This starting melody is called the “cantus firmus” (literally, the “fixed song”), abbreviated CF. Against it, we’ll create the “contra punctus”, our counterpoint – abbreviated CP.

Our first decision is whether the CP should be above or below the CF. Whichever you choose, it should stay there – if your CP is below the CF, it should never rise above the fixed melody at any point; doing so is called “voice crossing”. Although voice crossing has been used in many pieces (even by famous counterpoint composers like Bach), it’s not a beginner technique, so we’ll set that as a hard rule for now.

The next question to answer is what note the counterpoint should start on. We’ve got a beginner rule for this too: if the CF is going to be above the CP, the CP is the same pitch – it’s either exactly the same pitch (a unison interval), or it’s one octave below. If the CP is set above the CF, you have two choices: the same pitch (at the unison or the octave), or a perfect fifth above the first note of the CF.

These choices ensure a solid beginning. The ending is also fixed: the last note should be the same letter name as the CF, either in unison or at the octave.

Next we need to pay attention to the final “cadence”, the point of tension that leads into the last note. In strict counterpoint, you don’t even need to think about this one: if the CF is the lower voice, the second-to-last harmony will be a major sixth above it; if the CF is the upper voice, the penultimate (I love that word!) harmony will be a minor third below it.

It’s the in between stuff we need to worry about. Fux created a set of four rules for counterpoint. Beethoven reduced them to two rules. I’ll do old Ludwig one better, and set just one rule for counterpoint: never move into a perfect consonance by similar motion.

Let’s apply this simple rule to our CF. In this example, I’ll put the CP above the melody, and start with an octave interval. I’ll also end with an octave, and since the second-to-last interval is fixed by the rules we have so far, our harmony looks like this:

Notice that our second-to-last harmony note is C#. There is no requirement that your counterpoint stay in the same key!

Now let’s dig a little deeper and see what I’ve done with the counterpoint. Here’s the last example with the intervals labeled (P=perfect, M=major, m=minor):

All of the intervals I used were thirds, sixths, or octaves. Fifths would also be allowed, but in first species every interval should be consonant – either perfect consonances or imperfect ones.

And here’s the same example one more time, with the motions labeled:

Notice that I’ve used mostly contrary motion. That allows both lines to sound independent. I also didn’t use any oblique motion… that would have been allowed. I could also have started with a perfect fifth interval. The various combinations would all sound pretty good; you’re limited a bit by the application of the rules, but the rules result in things that sound pretty good, so they allow us to build from a solid foundation. I’ll start showing you how to break the rules a few installments down the road.

Tom (“Noteboat”) Serb is a longtime Guitar Noise contributor and founder of the Midwest Music Academy in Plainfield, Illinois. This advice first appeared in Volume 4 # 26 of Guitar Noise News. Sign-up for our newsletter to receive more free tips like this by email.

Counterpoint – Part 1

Tom Serb — Sat, 05 May 2012 09:34:01 +0000

Perhaps you’ve heard of “counterpoint”. It’s a style of music in which you have multiple voices (or instruments) doing different things at the same time, and it all adds up to something bigger than its parts.

In this series, I’m going to explore that aspect of music. In some ways it’s highly technical; in other ways it’s not. It might seem like an academic exercise (which it is, kind of), but it’s also applicable to bands that want to do two things at once.

In this article we’ll just start with a few fundamentals:

The word “counterpoint” comes to us from the Latin “contra punctus”, or ‘against the point’. When music notation started, there weren’t notes of different lengths, like todays whole notes and quarter notes; there were only notes, marked as dots (or points) above the lyrics. The Latin word for point is “punctus”, and the inventors of counterpoint were medieval churchmen, who spoke, or at least wrote, in Latin.

So we’ve got this point in the music. And against it, we want to set some other point. Composers started doing this around the 9th or 10th century, and within about 500 years they’d developed a system of doing that which resulted in sounds that consistently made sense.

Medieval counterpoint bears little resemblance to today’s music. At the same time, all the elements of today’s music – our chord progressions, rhythms, and even how we cast lyrics against melodies – have their roots in counterpoint. So I’ll start with the basics and move on from there.

The model of medieval counterpoint is the masses of Giulanni Pierluigi de Palestrina. He wasn’t the only composer of his era; other important ones were Lassus (Orlande de Lassus), Victoria (Tomas de Luis de Victoria), and William Byrd.

What made Palestrina so memorable was the first widely used counterpoint manual, called “Gradus ad Parnussum” (Steps to Parnassus) published by Johann Joseph Fux (pronounced “Fooks”) in 1725. It’s still in print, and if you have a real interest in counterpoint I’d recommend it – it was used by Mozart, Beethoven, and countless others.

Fux distilled the masses of Palestrina down to basic rules, and taught them through a dialogue between a student (Josephus) and his teacher (Aloysius).

Like may theory works, Fux “dumbs down” some concepts. He’s reducing some of the things that Palestrina did to essential elements. Bear in mind that Palestrina didn’t follow Fux’ rules (how could he, since he’d been dead before Fux was born?), but applying them can produce at least a consistently adequate result.

There are a few things we need to cover before we dive in: intervals, consonance (or dissonance) and motion.

“Interval” in music theory refers to the distance between two notes. Interval names have two parts, the first describing quality, and the second describing distance. Distance is simpler, so we’ll look at that first.

The size of an interval depends solely on the distance between its letters. The lower letter is number one: A-F is a sixth, because A is 1, which makes B 2, C 3, D 4, E 5, and F is the sixth. It doesn’t matter at all what kind of A or what kind of F we’re looking at – Ab – F# is a sixth, as is A# to Fb or any other combination.

The other part of an interval name describes quality. To really get this idea requires a knowledge of scales; in this example I’ll use A major (A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A) and other scales as required.

Intervals are measured starting from the lower note. If the lower note is A, and the upper note is B, we have to also look at the major scale of the upper note, B major: B-C#-D#-E-F#-G#-A#-B. We find that B is in the key of A (the lower note), but A is not in the key of B. That makes the interval “major”. Since B is the second letter starting from A, A-B is a “major second”.

If we look at the interval A-D, we get a different situation. The D major scale is D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D; here A is in the key of D, and D is also in the key of A. When that situation occurs, we call the interval “perfect”; A-D is a “perfect fourth” (because D is the fourth letter starting from A).

With those two starting points, we can define other intervals. A major interval made smaller by a half step becomes a minor interval; A-C# is a major third, but A-C is a minor third.

If we make a perfect interval smaller by a half step, we get a “diminished” interval. A-Db is a diminished fourth. Notice that this sounds just like A-C#, but in counterpoint they are not the same – A-C# is a third (because C is the third letter starting from A); A-Db must be a fourth (because D is the fourth letter starting from A). What we call things matters a lot in counterpoint!

If we make either a major or a perfect interval bigger, we get an “augmented” interval; Ab-C# is an augmented third, because we’ve made the distance between the notes bigger by lowering A. And A-D# is an augmented fourth for the same reason – we’ve made the interval bigger.

Making a perfect or a minor interval smaller results in a “diminished” interval. A#-C (or A-Cb) would be a diminished third; A-Db (or A#-D) would be a diminished fourth.

Making a diminished interval smaller results in a doubly-diminished interval (like A#-Cb), and making an augmented interval larger (like Ab-D#) creates a doubly-augmented interval. Both are rare in practice.

To sum up intervals, here’s the hierarchy:

dd -> d -> m – M – A – AA
(doubly diminished -> diminished -> minor -> Major -> Augmented -> doubly Augmented

dd -> d -> P -> A -> AA
(doubly diminished -> diminished -> perfect -> augmented -> doubly augmented

Next we’ll take a quick look at the idea of consonance and dissonance.

Consonance means the sounds get along with each other. Dissonance means they don’t. But the way we hear sounds depends on what we’ve been exposed to; in Palestrina’s day, perfect fourths were considered dissonant, and today they aren’t.

I’m going to confine the ideas in this series to what Fux/Palestrina had to say (with my own observations at the end to make them more appropriate to today’s music), so I’ll sum up their categories:

Perfect consonances – the sounds that are always consonant:
Unisons (the same pitch in both voices/instruments)
Octaves (the same letter names, but not the same pitch)
Fifths (A-E, D-A, etc.; the fifth note of the major scale)

Imperfect consonances – the sounds that sounds really good together, and are almost always consonant:
Thirds (major or minor)
Sixths (major or minor)

Dissonances, for our purposes, are everything else. When I teach composition, I divide dissonances into two categories: always dissonant and sometimes dissonant, but you don’t need to break them out to grasp basic counterpoint.

The last piece before we can tackle counterpoint is motion: how sounds move against each other. Depending on which music theorist you follow, you end up with either three or four different types of motion. I prefer three, but I’ll outline the fourth possibility.

Contrary motion occur when the melodies move in the opposite direction – the higher line moves up while the lower line moves down, or the lower line moves up while he higher line moves down.

Oblique motion occurs when one melody remains stationary while the other moves; a change from A-D to A-E is oblique motion (as is a change from A-D to G-D).

Similar motion happens when both voices move in the same direction: A-C# moving to B-G is similar motion. Although A moves just a whole step to B, and C moves a diminished fourth to G, both are moving in the same direction.

The fourth type of motion is called “parallel” motion; it’s similar motion where both voices move by exactly the same amount. A-C# moving to B-D# is parallel motion, because both voices move in the same direction by a whole step; A-C# moving to B-D is similar, but not parallel, because both voices are moving in the same direction, but by different intervals (A-B is a whole step; C#-D is a half step).

Tom (“Noteboat”) Serb is a longtime Guitar Noise contributor and founder of the Midwest Music Academy in Plainfield, Illinois. This advice first appeared in Volume 4 # 25 of Guitar Noise News. Sign-up for our newsletter to receive more free tips like this by email.

Events Horizon – Wednesday, April 25, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:20:49 +0000

Hello and welcome to the last Event’s Horizon for April, 2012. This, as you know, is our weekly Guitar Noise blog post where you can get news and pertinent information concerning upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

And, being the last posting in April, it means you’ve only a few days to send a note of congratulations to Tom McLaughlin and Life Is Drama, who have been chosed as Main Floor Music’s Band of the Month for April 2012. Go check it out! And be sure to check out Life Is Drama live if you have the chance!

As you know, we at Guitar Noise believe that the true power, wonder and beauty of music comes when it gets shared with the world. So whenever you’re out playing, we’d really like to do is to help promote your shows, whether it’s in a stadium or at a ten-seat coffee house. Not only is it a great way to help support each other, it’s also a terrific way to meet more musicians!

Every Wednesday, we’ll post here about the gigs we know are coming up in the following ten days or so. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to attend a show should they happen to be in your corner of the world! So here are some places you might check out (and be sure to write in to let us know of and post some more!):

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Another week’s gone by and it’s time once again for The Parlor’s weekly open mic, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Singer / songwriter, Marilyn Miller hosts the evening in this incredibly friendly little coffee house. Runs from 7 to 9 PM and all ages are welcome.

Friday, April 27, 2012

North Carolina’s hottest rocking band, Doesn’t Madder, has a gig at Risto’s Restaurant, 123 North Center Street in Statesville, North Carolina. The music starts at 9 PM.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Hudson’s own Marilyn Miller gets her own showcase evening at The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Show runs from 7 to 9 PM.

Rock out at The Opra House Saloon with Doesn’t Madder. The Opra House Saloon is located at 132 Sunset Avenue in Asheboro, North Carolina and the music goes from 9 until they close the place down for the night. Or morning, as the case may be!

Monday, April 30, 2012

If you live around Zurich, spend Monday night with Australian band The Wishing Well, who’ll be playing an 8 PM show at Kultur in der Kapelle, Urdorferstrasse 32 in Dietikon, Switzerland.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Wishing Well kicks off the month of May with a show at Suedpunkt, located at Pillenreuther Str. 147 in Nuremburg, Germany. The music commences at 8 PM.

TONIGHT! Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Rhapsody of Fire brings their hard rock show to the Kwadrat in Krakow, Poland.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Wishing Well lnads in Leipzig, Germany for an 8 PM performance at Noch Besser Leben, which is located at Merseburger Strasse 25.

And over in Poland, Tom Hess and Rhapsody of Fire are playing at Progresja in Warsaw, Poland. This is the band’s last show before starting a headlining tour of the US and Canada in late May.

Here in the States, you’ll find singer / songwriter Marilyn Miller hosting the weekly open mic at The Parlor, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. This incredibly friendly event runs from 7 to 9 PM and all ages are welcome.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Australian band The Wishing Well will be performing over the weekend at the Labadoux Festival in Ingelmuster, Belgium. Tonight they’ll be playing at the Pub Tent starting at 11:30 PM.

It seems like Doesn’t Madder is playing every weekend these days! That’s great that they continue to bring live music all through North Carolina. And this weekend is no exception as they have an 8 PM show at the Conover Tavern, 116 First Street South in Conover, North Carolina. Music plays until 11 PM.

Tom McLaughling and Life Is Drama make their debut at Tailgaters, located at 431 Boughton Road in Bollingbrook, Illinois. It’s a free show and it’s also a relatively early one, running from 8 PM until 10 PM. Come on out and have a great time!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

to George’s on the Lake, 101 North Catawba in Rhodhiss, North Carolina. The show runs from 9 PM until midnight.

The Wishing Well plays late at the Labadoux Festival in Ingelmuster, Belgium. Tonight they’ll be starting at 11:45 PM in the Concert Tent.

And you can catch me, along with the “Players to be Named Later” (meaning I have no idea who’s showing up to do backup – which makes rehearsals extremely interesting!) playing at The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Show runs from 7 to 9 PM.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Events Horizon – Wednesday, April 18, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:18:18 +0000

The birds are starting in singing earlier every morning, which is a sure sign that every day is going to be filled with music! And here to help you find even more ways to bring some live music into your life is this week’s Events Horizon, our weekly Guitar Noise blog post where you can get news and pertinent information concerning upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

By the way, don’t forget to send a note of congratulations to Tom McLaughlin and Life Is Drama, who have been chosed as Main Floor Music’s Band of the Month for April 2012. Go check it out! And be sure to check out Life Is Drama live if you have the chance!

TONIGHT! Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Rhapsody of Fire brings their hard rock show to the Kwadrat in Krakow, Poland.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Wishing Well lnads in Leipzig, Germany for an 8 PM performance at Noch Besser Leben, which is located at Merseburger Strasse 25.

And over in Poland, Tom Hess and Rhapsody of Fire are playing at Progresja in Warsaw, Poland. This is the band’s last show before starting a headlining tour of the US and Canada in late May.

Saturday, April 21 2012

Novo Rodeo, featuring Guitar Noise community member Greg Nease along with Suzannah Sabin and John Mazzeo, will be playing at one of my favorite places, Grovers’ Mill Coffee, located at 335 Princeton-Hightstown Road in West Windsor, New Jersey. Show starts at 7:30 PM and should be a lot of fun.

Speaking of fun, you can party along with Life Is Drama, with Guitar Noise community member Tom McLaughlin on guitar, at the Blue Chip Casino, located at the appropriately addressed 777 Blue Chip Drive, in Michigan City, Indiana. You don’t even have to gamble that the music is going to be great!

Doesn’t Madder is playing a 9 PM show at The Last Call Sports Bar at 1330 National Highway in Thomasville, North Carolina. Music plays until “close,” so it might be a very late night!

Australian band The Wishing Well plays an 8 PM show at Der Club Heiligenhaus, Kultur Hulsbecker Str. 16 in Helilgenhaus, Germany.

Jeb Barry of The Pawn Shop Saints plays at The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Show runs from 7 to 9 PM.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Friday, April 27, 2012

North Carolina’s hottest rocking band, Doesn’t Madder, has a gig at Risto’s Restaurant, 123 North Center Street in Statesville, North Carolina. The music starts at 9 PM.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Hudson’s own Marilyn Miller gets her own showcase evening at The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Show runs from 7 to 9 PM.

Monday, April 30, 2012

If you live around Zurich, spend Monday night with Australian band The Wishing Well, who’ll be playing an 8 PM show at Kultur in der Kapelle, Urdorferstrasse 32 in Dietikon, Switzerland.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Wishing Well kicks off the month of May with a show at Suedpunkt, located at Pillenreuther Str. 147 in Nuremburg, Germany. The music commences at 8 PM.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Building a Chord Vocabulary

Tom Serb — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:55:28 +0000

There are lots of possible chords. Almost all popular music follows “tertian” harmony, with chords built in thirds: C-E-G, etc.

Let me define “lots” a bit more precisely. By my count, there are roughly 47 different chord names used in the tertian system, including power “chords” and various altered and suspended chords used in popular music and jazz. Each of those chords can be built on 12 different tones, for a total of over 550 different chord sounds. (There will actually be more chord names than this, because of enharmonic spellings – Gb7 and F#7 have the same sound; on the other hand, there are fewer chord sounds than 47×12, because some, like C6 and Am7 contain identical tones).

Chords will vary in the number of pitches they can contain, from just two for power chords to seven for thirteenth chords. Each chord can have a number of ‘inversions’, which simply means a different note is in the bass – C-E-G, E-G-C, and G-C-E are all C major chords. The number of possible inversions will equal the number of tones in the chord, and the 47 chord names represent 228 different inversions. Multiply by twelve tones, and we’re up around 2700.

But we’re not done yet. Chords can be ‘voiced’ in many different ways. Since a C major chord contains the notes C-E-G, we can play a C major by using 332xxx, 3320xx, 33201x, 332010, x320xx, x3201x, x32010, xx201, xx2010, or xx010. That’s ten different voicings, and we haven’t even left first position. The fact is, many chords can be played in over 100 different voicings on the guitar. There will actually be a lot of duplicates (for reasons I’ll get into later on), but a guitar can play well over 20,000 different chord voicings. In fact, the guitar is capable of playing more chord voicings than any other instrument I’ve encountered.

Can anyone really play 10, 15, or 20,000 different chords? Yep, you bet. But if you learn one chord at a time it’s a Sisyphean task (as long as I’m building your chord vocabulary, I might as well build your regular one as well!). What we need is a strategy. I developed a system that worked for me in navigating the fretboard, and I’ve refined it as I’ve taught it to others; if you follow this system, you’ll be able to do it too.

Step 1: Learn the ‘cowboy’ chords. These are the open position major, minor, and dominant 7th chords: A, C, D, E, G, Am, Dm, Em, A7, B7, C7, D7, E7, and G7. That’s just 14 chords, and you can learn them by rote in two or three weeks if you don’t know them already.

Step 2: Learn the way notes are named. The musical alphabet contains the letters A-G, with two pairs of letter names one fret apart: B-C and E-F. All the other letter names are separated by two frets, and the fret in between can be called either of two names – on the first string, we have F at the first fret and G at the third fret; the fret in between can be called either F# (F-sharp) or Gb (G-flat).

Step 3: Any chord fingering can be moved to any position on the neck. As long as ALL the strings you play are moved by the same amount, the chord type will remain the same. So if you know that x02220 is an A major chord, xx444x will be a B major chord.

The trouble here is that it’s hard to strum a chord that doesn’t have strings played at one end or the other – the first or sixth strings. Since we had to move two frets to get from A to B, moving the open first string up two frets gets you a strummable B chord: xx4442 (finger it 2341).

Using this logic, you can turn the 14 cowboy chords into hundreds of different chord voicings. This is the essence of barre chords: you can turn E major (022100) into F major (133211) by using your first finger across all six strings.

What might not be so obvious is that you can also turn other cowboy chords into moveable voicings by leaving out one or more strings. G7 (320001) can become Ab7 by leaving out the two bass strings: xx1112. G major (320001) becomes C major by leaving out bass strings (xx5558) or the high E (87555x). You can actually create about 3-400 different voicings just by moving these basic chords!

Don’t overlook the possibilities of moving the two four-fingered chords either. Angling your third finger to dampen the second string on B7 creates a x212x2 voicing – since it has no open strings, it’s moveable. So is C7 if you angle your first finger to dampen the high E: x5452x is a D7 voicing.

Step 4: Take common chords and learn which chord tones fall on each string, and then learn to change them according to some basic rules of thumb. To illustrate this idea, I’ll use E major: 022100. The notes of the voicing are E-B-E-G#-B-E; those are the root (E), third (G#) and fifth (B) of the E major scale. So our chord voicing is R5R35R.

Notice that you’ve got a couple of ’5′ notes in there. You’ve also got three ‘R’ notes. In music theory terms, those are called ‘doublings’, and they don’t change the name of the chord.

Now let’s apply some rules of thumb…

The 9th note of the scale is the same as the 2nd note; that’s going to lie 2 frets above a root (R), or 2 frets below a 3rd (3). Since this particular voicing has only one third, we want to keep it for now, and we’ll change one of the ‘R’ notes to a 9, creating an Eadd9 chord: 022102 (R5R359)

The 4th note of the scale is the same as the 11th note, and it lies one fret above 3 or two frets below 5. But an 11th chord is a dominant chord type, so it also contains a b7 – we’ll get to that shortly. But a ‘sus’ chord replaces 3 with 4 – so 022200 creates an Esus chord (often written as Esus4).

The 6th note of the scale is the same as the 13th note – 13 is used when it’s a dominant chord (containing a b7), and 6 when the 7th isn’t present. The 6 is two frets above 5, or three frets below R. So we can turn E major into E6 by using 022120. We can create a different voicing by changing the other 5, playing 042100.

The 7 is special – lowering R by one fret gives us the major 7th; lowering it two frets gives us a b7, which is what’s used in dominant 7th chords. Now we can create Emaj7 by using 021100, or E7 with 020100.

The b7 also lies three frets above 5 (and the natural, or major 7th is four frets above 5). That gives us another voicing of E7: 022130, or R5R3b7R. Or we can double the b7, playing 020130 for another E7 voicing. If you’re ambitious, you can even try 021140 for Emaj7 (R5737R) – flatten your first finger across the third and fourth strings, but bend backwards at the knuckle to clear the high E. Can’t clear it? That’s ok too – if you can lift enough to dampen the string, 02114x is yet another Emaj7 voicing (R5737x).

Having a b7 in a chord to create an E7 voicing allows us to revisit 9, 11 and 13. A 9th chord is a dominant 7 with the addition of the 2 (or 9) of the scale – as you’ll recall, that’s two frets above R. So we can turn the 020100 E7 into 020102 E9 (R5b7359). We can also make E9 by using 020132 (R5b73b79) or 024130 (R593b7R).

11th chords are dominant chords with the 4th scale tone added. In theory, an 11th chord also contains the 9th; in practice it doesn’t have to – including too many tones in a chord makes it sound muddy, so most voicings stick to a total of just 4 or 5 different tones, no matter how many notes might be allowed by theory. Since 4 is a fret above 3 or two frets below 5, we can create 000100 (R-11-b7-3-5-R) for E11.

13th chords are dominant chords with the 6th scale tone included. Like 11th chords, they contain 9 and 11 in theory, but usually not in practice. Since the 6 or 13 is two frets above 5 or three below R, we can easily build E13: 020120 (R-5-b7-3-13-R).

Step 5: Learn to apply the same logic to the chords of step 3. Because full barre chords often use too many fingers to make these variations practical, I start by simplifying them. Let’s take the A-shape barre chord for this one: played as a C major, it’s x35553, or xR5R35. If you barre it across all six strings, its still a C chord (3R5R53).

I start by considering what I’ll need to change for a chord. For an add 9 chord, I’ll want to move R up by two frets, or 3 down by one. So I’ll form a four-finger chord voicing that doubles only the note I want to change. So I might start with x3555x (xR5R3x) – and raising R by two frets I get my Cadd9: x5555x.

Experimenting with these rules of thumb can bring you tons of new voicings. Starting with the same chord, I can lower R by one fret for Cmaj7: x3545x (xR573x), two frets for C7: x3535x (xR5b73x), or three frets for C6: x3525x (xR563x).

Step 6: This is the pinnacle of chord formation, and it involves four parts:

a) Learn the notes on the fretboard
b) Learn the letter spellings of every major scale
c) Learn what notes are altered for each chord name
d) Learn which notes are important

If you can get these under your belt, you’ll never again need a chord dictionary, and you’ll create your own voicings anywhere on the guitar.

For learning the fretboard, I recommend learning by rote. Although it’s possible to learn by reference to other notes (especially in octave patterns), I think note names are as important to a musician as multiplication tables are to a mathematician – they’re part of our basic tools. When I set out to learn the fretboard, I did it by making flash cards; I’d shuffle my little deck, flip over a card, and try to find that note name on all six strings as quickly as I could. Then I’d move on to the next card. As I recall, it took me about three weeks to have the fretboard down cold, working about 15 minutes a day.

I’d take the same approach to scales. Major scales are a basic element in music theory, so if you have them absolutely memorized you’ll find lots of uses for what you’ve learned.

For chord names, there’s a key built right into the name:

‘m’ in a chord name (or a minus sign in some charts) means minor – the third is lowered one fret from the major scale

‘+’ or ‘aug’ in a chord name means the fifth is raised one fret from the major scale.

‘sus’ in a chord name means the third is raised one fret to become a fourth (NOTE: many publications are now using names like ‘sus2′; these names imply the third is replaced with the scale degree that follows ‘sus’. This isn’t part of standard music theory – and leads to duplication of chord names, as Csus2 is the same chord as Gsus – but it’s also a fact of life for guitarists today, even if it’s theoretically incorrect!)

‘ °’ in a chord name means both the third and fifth are lowered one fret

‘add’ in a chord name means the tone that follows (like add9 or add11) is added to the chord, with no other alterations

‘maj’ in a chord name followed by any number refers to the 7th; the chord will include a major 7th rather than a b7. (In some jazz charts you may see a triangle instead of ‘maj’, as in C 7)

’7′, ’9′, ’11′, and ’13′ imply two things: first, that the 7 is flatted – it’s two frets below R; second, the chord may include any odd number below the one in the name (so an 11 may include 9)

‘alt’ in a chord name means you can raise or lower the 5 by one fret, and you can raise or lower the 9 by one fret. So “C7alt” may be C7b5, C7+, C7b9, C7#9, C7b5b9, etc. – it’s your choice

Chord symbols may appear in any order without changing the meaning; C+7 is the same as C7+.

There are some other variations out there – the use of lower case for minor chords, as in d7 for Dm7, but they’re pretty rare.

At the end of this lesson is a handout I made for my students a few years ago showing all the chord names, symbols, and formulas:

The last key, especially for chords with formulas of five or more notes, is knowing which tones are important to include. Your ear should always be your guide, but as a set of general rules:

Always include the highest number in the chord name (i.e., an 11th chord needs an 11th)
Include any altered tones whenever possible (#5 for a + chord, etc)
Include both the 3rd and b7 for dominant chords whenever possible
Include any tones that create a characteristic sound (b3 for minor chords, 4 for sus chords)

Notice that this list of rules doesn’t mention the root. There’s a difference between what we do in theory and what we do in practice, and the root of a chord usually isn’t very important to the sound – or at least not as important as other chord tones, and if a chord has too many notes to play them all, something has to go. For a little more information on how to handle the ‘big’ altered and extended chords, see my previous GN lessons on those topics.

Chord Spellings

Type	Spelling	Written As
'Power"	1-4	C4
'Power'	1-5	C5, C(no 3rd)
Diminished	1-b3-b5	Cº, Cdim, Cmb5, C-b5
Minor	1-b3-5	Cm, Cmi, Cmin, C-
Major b5	1-3-b5	C(b5)
Major	1-3-5	C
Augmented	1-3-#5	C+, Caug
Suspended	1-4-5	Csus, Csus4; ‘sus2’ etc. sometimes used (incorrectly)
Diminshed 7	1-b3-b5-bb7	Cº, Cº7, Cdim7
Half-diminshed	1-b3-b5-b7	C ø, Cm7b5, Cmi7b5, Cmin7b5, C-7b5
Minor 6th	1-b3-5-6	Cm6, Cmi6, Cmin6, C-6
Minor 7th	1-b3-5-b7	Cm7, Cmi7, Cmin7, C-7
Minor add9	1-b3-5-9	Cm(add 9), Cmi(add9), Cmin(add9), C-(add 9); ‘add 2’ sometimes used
Sixth	1-3-5-6	C6
Dominant 7th	1-3-5-b7	C7
Major add9	1-3-5-9	C (add9), C2
Minor add4	1-3-5-11	C (add4), C (add11), C4 – can be confused with power chords
Major 7th	1-3-5-7	Cmaj7, CM7, C∆
Augmented 7	1-3-#5-b7	C7+, C+7
Augmented major 7	1-3-#5-7	Cmaj7+, C+maj7, C+∆
Minor 6/9	1-b3-5-6-9	Cm6/9, Cmi6/9, Cmin6/9, C-6/9, Cm69, Cm6 (add9)
Minor 9th	1-b3-5-b7-9	Cm9, Cmi9, Cmin9, C-9
Ninth b5	1-3-b5-b7-9	C9b5
Sixth/seventh	1-3-5-6-b7	C6/7, C7/6, C7 (add13), C7/13, C67
6/9	1-3-5-6-9	C6/9, C69, C6 (add9), C9/6
Seven flat 9	1-3-5-b7-b9	C7b9
Ninth	1-3-5-b7-9	C9
Seventh sharp 9	1-3-5-b7-#9	C7#9
Major 9th	1-3-5-7-9	Cmaj9
Seventh b9 aug	1-3-#5-b7-b9	C7b9+, C+7b9
Augmented 9th	1-3-#5-b7-9	C9+, C+9
7 sharp 9 aug	1-3-#5-b7-#9	C7#9+, C+7#9
Suspended ninth	1-4-5-b7-9	C9sus, C9sus4
Minor 11th	1-b3-5-b7-9-11	Cm11, Cmi11, Cmin11, C-11
Seventh b9#9	1-3-5-b7-b9-#9	C7b9#9
Seventh b9#11	1-3-5-b7-b9-#11	C7b9#11
Ninth #11	1-3-5-b7-9-11	C9#11
Major 9th #11	1-3-5-7-9-#11	Cmaj9#11
7b9#9 augmented	1-3-#5-b7-b9-#9	C7b9#9+, C+7b9#9
7b9#11 augmented	1-3-#5-b7-b9-#11	C7b9#11+, C+7b9#11
13th suspended	1-4-5-b7-9-13	C13sus, C13sus4
Minor 13th	1-b3-5-b7-9-11-13	Cm13, Cmi13, Cmin13, C-13
13th #11b9	1-3-5-b7-b9-#11-13	C13#11b9
13th #11	1-3-5-b7-9-#11-13	C13#11
13th	1-3-5-b7-9-11-13	C13
Major 13th	1-3-5-7-9-11-13	Cmaj13
Major 13th #11	1-3-5-7-9-#11-13	Cmaj13#11

Tom (“Noteboat”) Serb is a longtime Guitar Noise contributor and founder of the Midwest Music Academyin Plainfield, Illinois. This advice first appeared in Volume 4 # 23 of Guitar Noise News. Sign-up for our newsletter to receive more free tips like this by email.

Events Horizon – Wednesday, April 11, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:12:29 +0000

Now that Spring (or Fall, depending on where you live) is truly here, why not celebrate by going out and hearing some terrific music? And here is this week’s Events Horizon, just to be helpful. As you know, Guitar Noise’s Events Horizon is our weekly blog post, almost always posted on Wednesdays, where you can gets news and pertinent information concerning upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening! And this time out, whether it’s just Spring or some other reason, we seem to have more shows than I can ever remember posting in one sitting!

As we mentioned last week, we in the Guitar Noise community extend a big congratulations to Tom McLaughlin and Life Is Drama, who have been chosed as Main Floor Music’s Band of the Month for April 2012. Go check it out! And be sure to check out Life Is Drama live if you have the chance!

Tonight! Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Australian band The Wishing Well is back out on tour in Europe! In April they’ll be gigging throughout Germnay and tonight you can catch them at the Lauschbar, located at Kleine Paaschburg 2 in Itzehoe, Germany. Show starts at 8 PM.

Longtime Guitar Noise contributor Tom Hess is also back on the road with Rhapsody of Fire. Tonight they’ve got a show at the Live Club in Milano, Italy.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Time once again for The Parlor’s weekly open mic, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Singer / songwriter, Marilyn Miller hosts the evening in this incredibly friendly little coffee house. Runs from 7 to 9 PM and all ages are welcome.

The Wishing Well have an 8 PM gig at the Club Am Donnerstag, Bergdorfer Schloss Strasse 4 in Bergdorf, Germany. Show starts at 8 PM.

Rhapsody of Fire, with longtime Guitar Noise contributor Tom Hess on guitar, plays at Estragon in Bologna, Italy.

Friday, April 13, 2012

You’ll find The Wishing Well at Die Pumpe, located at Kleine Paaschburg 2 in Kiel, Germany. Show starts at 8 PM.

Rhapsody of Fire continues its tour of Italy with a show at the Orion in Rome, Italy.

Doesn’t Madder returns to Risto’s Place, 123 North Center Street in Statesville, North Carolina for an 8 to 11 PM show.

Life Is Drama has a full weekend! Tonight they’ll be playing at J. W. Holsteins, 17358 Oak Park Avenue in Tinley Park, Illinois. 10 PM start for this show.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

You might want to head over to George’s on the Lake, 101 Catawba Avenue in Rhodhiss, North Carolina to catch Doesn’t Madder playing an 8:30 to 11:30 PM show.

And you can party along with Life Is Drama as they rock out a 10 PM show at Shakers, located at 131 Stevenson Road in Ottawa, Illinois.

And if you happen to be close to Treviso, Italy, you can catch Tom Hess playing with Rhapsody of Fire at the New Age.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Rhapsody of Fire, with Tom Hess on guitar, have a big Sunday night show at the Szene, in Vienna, Austria.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Potsdam gets a visit from Australian band The Wishing Well, who have an 8 PM show at Waschhaus, Schiffbauergasse 6 in Potsdam, Germany. Show starts at 8 PM.

It’s certainly been a busy week for longtime Guitar Noise contributor Tom Hess! He and Rhapsody of Fire have a performance at the Master of Rock Cafe, located in Zlin, Czech Republic.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Rhapsody of Fire brings their hard rock show to the Kwadrat in Krakow, Poland.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Wishing Well lnads in Leipzig, Germany for an 8 PM performance at Noch Besser Leben, which is located at Merseburger Strasse 25.

And over in Poland, Tom Hess and Rhapsody of Fire are playing at Progresja in Warsaw, Poland.

Saturday, April 21 2012

Speaking of fun, you can party along with Life Is Drama, with Guitar Noise community member Tom McLaughlin on guitar, at the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Indiana. You don’t even have to gamble that the music is going to be great!

Doesn’t Madder is playing an 8 PM show at Conover Tavern, 116 1st Street South in Conover, North Carolina. Music plays until 11 PM.

Australian band The Wishing Well plays an 8 PM show at Der Club Heiligenhaus, Kultur Hulsbecker Str. 16 in Helilgenhaus, Germany.

Jeb Barry of The Pawn Shop Saints plays at The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Show runs from 7 to 9 PM.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales – Part 9

Tom Serb — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:47:06 +0000

Even More Exotic Scales!

At the end of the Part 8, you may have noticed I wrote “in our twelve-tone system.” Western music currently divides an octave into twelve equal parts, and the tuning we use is called 12TET, for 12 tone equal temperament. Prior to the 18th century, we used twelve tones, but they weren’t equally divided. Scales in the earlier Western systems (which was used by Bach, Mozart, and others) had twelve tones, but they weren’t equally divided – you can find some recordings of -period’ instruments using the earlier tunings, and you can probably hear a difference in the scales. But the scales used have the same names I’ve outlined in this series, because they use the same twelve tones.

The reason Western tuning changed was because of a mathematical oddity in scales – a “perfect” octave has one note vibrating exactly twice as fast as the other. In a “perfect” fifth, one note vibrates exactly one-and-a-half times faster than the other. Twelve perfect fifths make seven perfect octaves, but if you take a starting frequency and multiply it by 150% twelve times, you don’t get the same result as doubling it seven times. The first person to figure this out was Pythagoras (yep, the triangle guy) and the difference is called the “Pythagorean comma”. What it means in practical terms is that we can’t have all our notes perfectly in tune – if we try to get some sounds really, truly, perfectly in tune with others, we force OTHER tones to be out of tune! Our Western solution was to make every note equally spaced, which makes every note except the octave just a bit out of tune.

Other cultures have taken different approaches to the problem of the Pythagorean comma, and their solutions have divided the octave into some other division than 12. That means you won’t be able to just fret these scales – you’ll have to selectively bend notes to hit pitches that are between our twelve tones. I’ll outline two of these systems for you to experiment with.

In the Arabian peninsula music theorists took a mathematical approach, and the theory (which dates back about 1200 years) divides the octave into 17 parts. But it’s not quite as simple as dividing by 17! Most of the music of the middle east and North Africa is vocal, or accompanied by instruments like the oud, which is fretless – so they’re not constrained by “fixed intonation”. As a result, there are regional differences that have developed in their scales. What I’m calling “Arabian” is a broad description; it covers music from the Arabian peninsula all the way up to the Black Sea, as well as much of north Africa and the Southwestern parts of the former Soviet Union.

Modern Arabian music uses at least 24 different pitches to the octave, and the placement of those pitches can be a little different in Iraq than they are in Algeria! If you’re really interested in this sort of music, listen to it closely and use what you hear!

But here’s the basic structure: Arabian scales are called “maqams”, and each maqam is made up of two or more “jins”, which are fragments of 3 to 5 notes. The jins may follow one another, or they may overlap (i.e., the last two notes of one jin may also be the first two notes of the next jin), or they may be separated by one or two other tones, usually equivalent to our half steps and whole steps. This means there are a HUGE number of possible maqams, so I’m going to focus just on the jins. I’ll start them all from C; you’ll need to transpose them up to create whole maqams from these. The Hijaz, Bayati, and Sikah are the ones most commonly heard.

We’ll start with the ones that can be played without bends:

C-Db-Eb-F is the Kurd jin. It’s the same as the beginning of our Phrygian scale.

C-D-Eb-F is the Nahawand jin. It’s the same as the beginning of our minor scales.

C-Db-Eb-Fb is the Zamzama jin.

C-D-Eb-F#-G is the Nawa Athar jin, and

C-Db-Eb-F#-G is the Athar Kurd (it’s the Nawa Athar with the second note flatted)

Now we start bending. Here you’ll have to use your ears, because the differences can be small.

C-D-E* (the E is played just slightly flat, so you bend from D# about 90% of the way to E) is the Ajam.

C-D-E** (with the E just a little more flat than in the Ajam – maybe 80% of the way to E) is the Jiharkah.

C-D-Eb*-F is the Busalik

C-Db*-E***-F (with E bent sharp by about 10%) is the Hijaz.

Several jins make use of notes about halfway between our pitches. I’ll indicate those with the notes on either side, as in Db/D – you bend halfway from Db to D to get the right sound:

C-Db/D-Eb/E is the Sikah jin. If you want, you can bend the C to be C/C#, and just follow it with D and E.

C-D/Eb-Eb/E is the Mustaar. You can also go from C/C# to Eb and then E.

C-Db/D-Eb-F is the Bayati.

C-D-Eb/E-F is the Rast.

C-Db/D-Eb-Fb is the Saba.

The music of India consists of an entirely different system, called raga. When I studied Indian music in a college class, we were taught that there were 72 ragas – I’ve since learned that wasn’t exactly true (it’s more like 300!) The music of Southern India follows a system of “Carnatic” ragas; Northern India uses “Hindustani” ragas. They have different origins, so while there is overlap, it’s either coincidental or the result of unrecorded past influences from the other system. What I was being taught was a Southern system (as it turns out, it’s not even the only Southern system!), which does have 72, but there are modifications used that push that to 100 or so.

Ragas have cultural and religious implications; some are to be performed at certain times of the day, or during certain seasons of the year. I admit I’ve never really gotten a good grasp on that aspect of ragas. But I do understand at least a bit about how they work musically – ragas, like our Western diatonic scales, each consist of seven notes in an octave.

Every raga contains two fixed notes, Sa (our “do”, or C) and Pa (our “sol”, or G). Because of this, raga melodies can have cadences that are virtually identical to those in Western music. But the other five notes in a raga can take either two forms (like our D or Db) or three forms – like Db, D, or D#. Some of their pitches are identical in sound, like our F# and Gb.

Ancient ragas divided an octave into 22 divisions called shruti. In most parts of India this has given way to a twelve tone system – that’s the one I’ll present here. But drawing on the shruti heritage, the 12 tones that make up ragas aren’t equally spaced. So we’ll need to start with a slightly different scale. The one I’m presenting I can’t pretend is standardÃ¢ï¿½Â¦ but that’s because there ISN’T a standard! The actual divisions of the octave can vary from place to place, and even from one performance to another.

But to make this at least a bit accessible, I’m going to simplify the tones. I’ve worked this section from recordings of ragas, and where the pitch is within 5 cents or so of what we use, I’ll just make them equivalent (a cent in music is 1/100th of a half step). You’ll need to adjust a couple of tones in the ragas:

C# will be about 10% flatter than our C#; bend up the C below most of the way to C#
A will be about 15% flatter than our A; bend up from the G# below

Got that? Ok, on with the scales. I’m showing all of them with sharp tones to keep things simple, and to avoid having to go into how shruti are named.

Kanakangi = C-C#-D-F-G-G#-A-C
Ratnangi = C-C#-D-F-G-G#-A#-C
Ganamurti = C-C#-D-F-G-G#-B-C
Vanaspati = C-D#-D-F-G-A-A#-C
Manavati = C-D#-D-F-G-A-B-C
Tanarupi = C-D#-D-F-G-A#-B-C
Senavati = C-C#-D#-F-G-G#-A-C
Hanumatodi = C-C#-D#-F-G-G#-A#-C
Dhenuka = C-C#-D#-F-G-G#-B-C
Natakapriya = C-C#-D#-F-G-A-A#-C
Kokilapriya = C-C#-D#-F-G-A-B-C
Rupavati = C-C#-D#-F-G-A#-B-C
Gayakapriya = C-C#-E-F-G-G#-A-C
Vakulabharanam = C-C#-E-F-G-G#-A#-C
Mayamalavagowla = C-C#-E-F-G-G#-B-C
Chakravakam = C-C#-E-F-G-A-A#-C
Suryakantam = C-C#-E-F-G-A-B-C
Hatakambari = C-C#-E-F-G-A#-B-C
Jhankaradhwani = C-D-D#-F-G-G#-A-C
Natabhairavi = C-D-D#-F-G-G#-A#-C
Keeravani = C-D-D#-F-G-G#-B-C
Kharaharapriya = C-D-D#-F-G-A-A#-C
Gourimanohari = C-D-D#-F-G-A-B-C
Varunapriya = C-D-D#-F-G-A#-B-C
Mararanjani = C-D-E-F-G-G#-A-C
Charukesi = C-D-E-F-G-G#-A#-C
Sarasangi = C-D-E-F-G-G#-B-C
Harikambhoji = C-D-E-F-G-A-A#-C
Dheerasankarabharanam = C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C (not quite our major scale, because A is a bit flat)
Naganandini = C-D-E-F-G-A#-B-C
Yagapriya = C-D#-E-F-G-G#-A-C
Ragavardhini = C-D#-E-F-G-G#-A#-C
Gangeyabhushani = C-D#-E-F-G-G#-B-C
Vagadheeswari = C-D#-E-F-G-A-A#-C
Shulini = C-D#-E-F-G-A-B-C
Chalanata = C-D#-E-F-G-A#-B-C
Salagam = C-C#-D-F#-G-G#-A-C
Jalamavam = C-C#-D-F#-G-G#-A#-C
Jhalavarali = C-C#-D-F#-G-G#-B-C
Navaneetam = C-C#-D-F#-G-A-A#-C
Pavani = C-C#-D-F#-G-A-B-C
Raghupriya = C-C#-D-F#-G-A#-B-C
Gavambhodi = C-C#-D#-F#-G-G#-A-C
Bhavapriya = C-C#-D#-F#-G-G#-A#-C
Shubhapantuvarali = C-C#-D#-F#-G-G#-B-C
Shadvidamargini = C-C#-D#-F#-G-A-A#-C
Suvamangi = C-C#-D#-F#-G-A-B-C
Divyamani = C-C#-D#-F#-G-A#-B-C
Dhavalambari = C-C#-E-F#-G-G#-A-C
Namanarayani = C-C#-E-F#-G-G#-A#-C
Kamavardani = C-C#-E-F#-G-G#-B-C
Ramapriya = C-C#-E-F#-G-A-A#-C
Gamanashrama = C-C#-E-F#-G-A-B-C
Vishwambari = C-C#-E-F#-G-A#-B-C
Shamalangi = C-D-D#-F#-G-G#-A-C
Shanmukhapriya = C-D-D#-F#-G-G#-A#-C
Simhendramadhyamam = C-D-D#-F#-G-G#-B-C
Hemavati = C-D-D#-F#-G-A-A#-C
Dharmavati = C-D-D#-F#-G-A-B-C
Neetimati = C-D-D#-F#-G-A#-B-C
Kantamani = C-D-E-F#-G-G#-A-C
Rishabhapriya = C-D-E-F#-G-G#-A#-C
Latangi = C-D-E-F#-G-G#-B-C
Vachaspati = C-D-E-F#-G-A-A#-C
Mechakalyani = C-D-E-F#-G-A-B-C
Chitambari = C-D-E-F#-G-A#-B-C
Suchantra = C-D#-E-F#-G-G#-A-C
Jyoti swarupini = C-D#-E-F#-G-G#-A#-C
Dhatuvardani = C-D#-E-F#-G-G#-B-C
Nasikabhushani = C-D#-E-F#-G-A-A#-C
Kosalam = C-D#-E-F#-G-A-B-C
Rasikapriya = C-D#-E-F#-G-A#-B-C

Many, many more scales are possible. I’ve only touched on the ones that are commonly used in Western music with the 12TET scale, and those that are culturally widespread. But theorists and composers are continually experimenting – tuning systems now exist that divide an octave into 15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 31, 34, 41, 53, and 72 equal divisions, and unequal tuning systems are also possible… from the historical ones like the Werkmeister tunings used by Bach to tomorrow’s innovations.

I hope this series has given your fingers some food for thought!

Tom (“Noteboat”) Serb is a longtime Guitar Noise contributor and founder of the Midwest Music Academyin Plainfield, Illinois. This advice first appeared in Volume 4 # 22 of Guitar Noise News. Sign-up for our newsletter to receive more free tips like this by email.

More from Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales

Events Horizon – Wednesday, April 4, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:12:49 +0000

How did it get to be April already? Welcome to the April 4 posting of of Guitar Noise’s Events Horizon, our weekly blog post where you can gets news and pertinent information concerning upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

And speaking of the Guitar Noise community, let’s extend a big congratulations to Tom McLaughlin and Life Is Drama, who have been chosed as Main Floor Music’s Band of the Month for April 2012. Go check it out! And be sure to check out Life Is Drama if you have the chance!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Singer / songwriter, Marilyn Miller hosts the weekly open mic at The Parlor, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. This incredibly friendly event runs from 7 to 9 PM and all ages are welcome.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Doesn’t Madder is playing an 8 PM show at Conover Tavern, 116 1st Street South in Conover, North Carolina. Music plays until 11 PM.

Dan and Lisa Senie bring their original folk music to The Parlor Saturday Concert Series. The Parlor is a great little coffe shop located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Show starts at 7 PM.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Friday, April 13, 2012

Doesn’t Madder returns to Risto’s Place, 123 North Center Street in Statesville, North Carolina for an 8 to 11 PM show.

Life Is Drama has a full weekend! Tonight they’ll be playing at J. W. Holsteins in Tinley Park, Illinois.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

You might want to head over to George’s on the Lake, 101 Catawba Avenue in Rhodhiss, North Carolina to catch Doesn’t Madder playing an 8:30 to 11:30 PM show.

And you can party along with Life Is Drama as they rock out at Shakers in Ottawa, Illinois.

Connie Boyle performs tonight at The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Show starts at 7 PM.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Events Horizon – Wednesday, March 28, 2012

David Hodge — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:48:16 +0000

Welcome to the March 28 edition of Guitar Noise’s Events Horizon, our weekly blog post where you can gets news and pertinent information concerning upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

The Fallen Starlets are one of five bands playing a Benefit for the Western Massachusetts Food Pantry. Come our and party for a great cause at Chameleon’s, 1350 East Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Music goes from 8 PM until midnight.

Friday, March 30, 2012

The Fallen Starlets take their act on the road! They’ll be one of four bands performing at Valentine’s Music Club and Beer Joint, located at 17 New Scotland Avenue in Albany, New York. The music starts at 8 PM and goes until 11.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Connie Boyle performs tonight at The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Show starts at 7 PM.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Doesn’t Madder is playing an 8 PM show at Conover Tavern, 116 1st Street South in Conover, North Carolina. Music plays until 11 PM.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales – Part 8

Tom Serb — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:42:05 +0000

Additional Exotic Scales

In addition to what composers have done, theorists have provided us with many scales. In an earlier installment I outlined Heinrich Glaren’s theory of modes; he found that the existing church modes and secular scales could all be seen as the major scale “starting from” different notes.

The harmonic minor scale had the formula 1-2-b3-4-5-b6-7 compared to the major scale. If we’re starting from A, the A harmonic minor scale will be A-B-C-D-E-F-G#-A.

If we shift the starting point, we can construct a scale of B-C-D-E-F-G#-A-B. We can think of this as a ‘mode’ of the harmonic minor scale.

Because any scale can be shifted this way to make an entirely new scale, we can quickly get lost in the permutations. The easiest way to deal with this problem is to think of each new scale as one of the scales you already know with one note altered. This scale is our B Locrian scale with the sixth note raised – in other words, you can think of this as the Locrian #6 scale. It’s often called the Locrian 13 scale. To understand why it’s called that, we’ll take a quick look at extended chords.

Chords are built in thirds – that’s every other note of the major scale. If we take a B major scale as our starting point:

B-C#-D#-E-F#-G#-A#-B

We can take every other letter and build chords:

B-D#-F# = B major
B-D#-F#-A = B7 (dominant 7th chords have a lowered 3rd; this has A instead of the scale’s A#)
B-D#-F#-A-C# = B9 (notice that the 9th, C#, is the same note as the 2nd scale note)
B-D#-F#-A-C#-E = B11 (E is the 11th; it’s also the 4th note of the scale)
B-D#-F#-A-C#-E-G# = B13 (G# is the 13th; it’s the same note as the 6th of the scale)

Because the ‘modes’ of the minor scales are often used for improvising over extended jazz chords, calling the scale “Locrian 13″ tells us it’s going to work over an altered minor 13th chord. It’ll work because it’s got the 13th; it’s going to work better over minor 13th chords because it’s got a b3 – the scale has F instead of F#; and altered chords change either the 9th or 5th… in this case, the scale has a b5. By naming these scales using altered odd numbers, we can sort of key in their use to particular chord formulas.

Starting from the next note, we get C-D-E-F-G#-A-B-C. This is our major scale with a raised 5th, or the Ionian #5 scale.

Moving on, we get D-E-F-G#-A-B-C-D. This is our D Dorian scale with the 4th note raised. Since the 4th of a scale is also the 11th of a chord, this is called Dorian #11.

The next scale would be E-F-G#-A-B-C-D-E. This looks a bit like E major, because of the G#, but it doesn’t have any other sharps – E major also has F#, C#, and D#. Lowering the 7th note of a major scale gets us a Mixolydian scale, so this is E Mixolydian with TWO notes altered – the 2nd and 6th notes are lowered. In keeping with our chord/scale labeling system, this is called E Mixolydian b9 b13.

Next we get F-G#-A-B-C-D-E-F. That’s our F Lydian scale with the 2nd note raised, so we call it Lydian #9.

And finally, we get G#-A-B-C-D-E-F. This one gets ugly for naming, because there’s no G# major scale. In theory there could be, but it would have a double-sharped F, so it’s not practical for everyday use. But we’ll take it as our starting point – the symbol for a double sharp is ‘x’ – here’s the G# major scale and our latest mode:

G#-A#-B#-C#-D#-E#-Fx-G# = G# major
G#-A-B-C-D-E-F-G# = 7th mode of the harmonic minor

You can see that this scale changes just about everything! A is the b2, and D is the b5 – both are found in the Locrian scale, along with the B. But we’ve also lowered the 4th, and we’ve lowered the 7th TWICE! Because this one is so heavily altered, it’s not going to work over any common chords, and we simply call it Locrian b4 bb7 (yes, that’s a double flatted 7th).

We can do the same thing with the melodic minor scale, but we’ll only form ‘modes’ from the ascending pattern (because the descending pattern is already a mode of the major scale – the Aeolian, so the ‘modes’ are the same as the other major scale modes). Here’s the A melodic minor:

A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A

The first mode will be B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A-B, which is the Dorian scale with a b9.

The second mode is C-D-E-F#-G#-A-B-C. The F# makes this a Lydian scale type; the G# means it will blend well with augmented chords (major chords with a raised fifth), so it’s called the Lydian Augmented.

The third mode is D-E-F#-G#-A-B-C-D. G# makes this another Lydian scale type; the C is lowered compared the D major scale, so this is the Lydian b7.

Next we have E-F#-G#-A-B-C-D-E. The first five notes match the E major scale. But E major has a D#, so this has a lowered 7th – that’s a Mixolydian type scale, but with the C also lowered; we call this Mixolydian b13.

Then we have F#-G#-A-B-C-D-E-F#. In our major scales, F# is the key of G; the F# scale built from G major notes would be Locrian. But F# Locrian would have G natural, so we call this the Locrian 9 (meaning we’re using the 9th/2nd from the major scale).

Finally, we have G#-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#. If you go back to our theoretical G# major scale (G#-A#-B#-C#-D#-E#-Fx-G#), you can see that this is G# major with EVERYTHING lowered – in other words, scale formula 1-b2-b3-b4-b5-b6-b7. This one is simply called the ‘altered’ scale. You can also think of this as the Locrian scale (1-b2-b3-4-b5-b6-b7) with the fourth lowered, or Locrian b4.

Perhaps at this point you can see how useful it is to name scales by altering a note or two from more common scales. Many other scales can be identified this way – and created this way. You could play E-F-G-A-B-C#-D-E, and think of it as the Phrygian #6. You could play F-G-A-B-C#-D-E-F, and think of it as Lydian #5. Any and all combinations of basic (or not so basic) scales with altered notes are possible.

So when you hear someone talk about the “Lydian dominant” scale, you can think of it as a Lydian scale – that’s the major scale with a #4 – combined with a dominant chord, which has a b7. 1-2-3-#4-5-6-b7 is the Lydian dominant. The “Phrygian major” scale is just the Phrygian (1-b2-b3-4-5-b6-b7) with the third raised, or 1-b2-3-4-5-b6-b7.

Another scale created by theory before it was ever used in music is the “two semitone tritone” scale, created by Nicholas Slonimsky. Focusing on the fact that altered chords in jazz make use of the b5, 5, or #5, he started there – with the series F#, G, and Ab. Those tones are each semitones (or half steps) apart; duplicating that pattern a tritone away gave him C, Db, and D. So the two semitone tritone scale is C-Db-D-F#-G-Ab, or 1-b2-2-#4-5-b6. It’ll work over any altered dominant chord in jazz.

Theorists even create scales just for the fun of it – an Italian music journal in the 1800s posted a scale as a challenge to composers to find a way to harmonize it; Opera composer Giuseppe Verdi answered the challenge, composing “Ave Maria (sulla scala enigmatica)”, naming the scale in the process – the enigmatic scale contains C-Db-E-F#-G#-A#-B going up, and substitutes F natural for F# going down. It’s been used by a few other composers since then, including Joe Satriani in the tune “The Enigmatic”.

There are still other scales in our twelve-tone system, but the ones I’m leaving out really haven’t been used in music (at least not yet). They’re still in the theory books waiting for composers to try them out.

Tom (“Noteboat”) Serb is a longtime Guitar Noise contributor and founder of the Midwest Music Academyin Plainfield, Illinois. This advice first appeared in Volume 4 # 21 of Guitar Noise News. Sign-up for our newsletter to receive more free tips like this by email.

More from Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales

Events Horizon – Wednesday, March 21, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 07:57:49 +0000

Spring, or fall depending on which side of the Equator you happen to live, is officially here! Welcome to the March 21 edition of Guitar Noise’s Events Horizon, our weekly blog post where you can gets news and pertinent information concerning upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Time once again for The Parlor’s weekly open mic. This cool little coffee shop is located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Singer / songwriter, Marilyn Miller hosts this incredibly friendly event, running from 7 to 9 PM. All ages welcome.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Mark Cosgrove, John Kirk and Trish Miller highlight a benefit concert for the Boys and Girls Club of Pittsfield. This will be held at 8:00 PM at the Barrington Stage Company’s Main Stage, 30 Union Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Tickets are $20.

Doesn’t Madder brings a great night of rock music to Tommy’s SportsBar, 110 Valencia Place in Lenoir, North Carolina. Show starts at 9 PM and goes until the place closes!

Tom McLaughlin and Life Is Drama have a show at Keglers, located at 905 Theodore Street, Crest Hill, Illinois. If you’ve not seen Life Is Drama, get out there and have a fun night!

The Parlor Saturday Concert Series continues with a 7 to 9 PM show by Lisa Dudley and Ed Kenney. The Parlor is a great little coffe shop located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York.

And speaking of cool coffee shops, one of my favorites – Grovers’ Mill Coffee, located at 335 Princeton-Hightstown Road in West Windsor, New Jersey – will be having a “Beatles’ Fest” Tribute Night starting at 7:30 PM. Lots of local artists will be performing, including the ”official debut” of Novo Rodeo, featuring Guitar Noise community member Greg Nease along with Suzannah Sabin and John Mazzeo. These tribute nights at Grovers’ Mill are always a lot of fun, so stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Friday, March 30, 2012

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Connie Boyle performs tonight at The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Show starts at 7 PM.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Events Horizon – Wednesday, March 14, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 07:21:16 +0000

Okay, this is where I’m supposed to write something new and clever about the Ides of March since today is March 14 and this edition of Guitar Noise’s Events Horizon falls one day before that historically fateful day. But apparently, the Ides of March aren’t playing anywhere in the next ten days so I guess I’ll have to wait ’til next year.

In the meantime, you can sit back and enjoy our weekly blog post where we do our best to catch you up on upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

Since this may indeed be a “once in a lifetime” event, do yourself a favor and try to get out and hear some local music over the next ten days! Here are some places you might check out (and be sure to write in to let us know of and post some more!):

Tonight! Wednesday, March 14, 2012

If you’ve not heard guitarist Jason Ennis, you’re missing a fine artist! Jason plays tonight as part of the Natalia Bernal Quartet. They’ll be playing from 6 to 10 PM at The Garage, which is at 99 7th Avenue South in New York City, New York. Should be a terrific show.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Dare to venture out on the Ides of March! Come visit The Parlor’s weekly open mic, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Singer / songwriter, Marilyn Miller hosts the evening in this incredibly friendly little coffee house. Runs from 7 to 9 PM and all ages are welcome.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Kick off Saint Patrick’s Day weekend with Doesn’t Madder playing an early show at Risto’s Place, 123 North Center Street in Statesville North Carolina. Show starts at 5:30 PM and runs ’til about 9.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

You can celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day with some outstanding Texas swing music from Girl Howdy as they play a 7:30 PM show at the Stone Church Coffee House, held at the First Congregational Church on 280 High Street in Bristol, Rhode Island. Tickets are $15 at the door; doors open at 6:45 PM.

The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York, will have a 7 to 9 PM show by Craig Hancock.

The Fallen Starlets are part of a huge Saint Patrick’s Day Rock and Roll party at The A, 303 Crane Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The fun starts at 9 PM.

Saint Patrick’s Day weekend continues with Doesn’t Madder playing an 9:30 PM show at The Opra House Saloon, located at 132 Sunset Avenue in Asheboro, North Carolina. Music plays until 12,30 AM Sunday morning!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Doesn’t Madder brings a great night of rock music to Tommy’s SportsBar, 110 Valencia Place in Lenoir, North Carolina. Show starts at 9 PM and goes until the place closes!

Tom McLaughlin and Life Is Drama have a show at Kegglers, located at 905 Theodore Street, Crest Hill, Illinois. If you’ve not seen Life Is Drama, get out there and have a fun night!

And The Parlor Saturday Concert Series continues with a 7 to 9 PM show by Lisa Dudley and Ed Kenney. The Parlor is a great little coffe shop located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales – Part 7

Tom Serb — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 13:33:53 +0000

Exotic scales

After the pentatonic, major, and common minor scales and the modes, everything else – with one exception – can be considered an exotic scale; these won’t be used very often, but they’re still pretty cool, and each has its own sound.

The one exception is the chromatic scale. The word “chromatic” comes from the Greek word “chroma”, which means “color”. We can think of accidentals (sharps and flats) as adding a color, or inflection, to the natural note – so C# can be seen as a ‘color’ of C. If you use all the crayons in the box, you get the chromatic scale, or all the possible colors.

The chromatic scale is used sparingly in all sorts of music as a series of passing tones. It’s also used as the foundation for almost all atonal music, which avoids a sense of key by using all the possible notes equally. That means avant-garde composers are fond of it, and it’s worth knowing.

The guitar’s strings are mostly tuned in fourths, and perfect fourths are two and a half steps apart – five frets on a guitar. The exception is the second and third strings, which are a major third apart, or two whole steps (four frets). Since we can only fret four notes on a string without stretching or shifting position, the most common chromatic scale fingering will shift position on every string except the third/second – here’s a chromatic scale starting from 6th string 8th fret C:

4-5-6-7-8
5-6-7-8
5-6-7-8
6-7-8-9
7-8-9-10
8-9-10-11

In order to get two full octaves, I’ve put five notes on the first string. You could put the extra note on any string, so there are multiple fingerings of a two-octave chromatic scale. You can also shift on any finger – the first string in the example above could be fingered 1-1-2-3-4, 1-2-2-3-4, 1-2-3-3-4, or 1-2-3-4-4. This gives you a lot of possibilities, but a pretty simple structure.

If you use a chromatic scale run in an improvised passage, you’ll find it’s actually trickier than it looks. Because you’re constantly shifting position on each string, you’ll want to keep track of what base scale fingering you were using at the beginning, and know what fingering you’ll move to at the end.

For example, if I were playing in a 7th position C scale, and decided to do a one octave run up from C, I’d have this:

-
-
5
6-7-8-9
7-8-9-10
8-9-10

Now I’m in fifth position, which is very friendly for C major. But other chromatic runs, or other starting points, might not be so favorable. Always know where you are on the fretboard!

The chromatic scale is the simplest of the symmetrical scales – those that have an equal distance between each note. The other fairly common symmetrical scale is the “whole-tone” scale, which has six notes, each a whole tone apart: C-D-E-F#-G#-A#-C (or C-D-E-Gb-Ab-Bb-C). Like the chromatic scale, this requires shifts on most strings:

4-6-8
5-7
5-7
6-8
7-9
8-10

There are a few pieces of music composed entirely of the whole tone scale; most of the ones I’ve heard that sound decent are piano pieces. But there’s one chord where the whole tone scale is appropriate for improvising: the augmented chord.

A C+ chord (the ‘+’ is the symbol for augmented) or a C7+ (augmented seventh) is composed entirely of whole steps or double whole steps: C-E-G# for the C+ chord, and C-E-G#-Bb for the C7+. So even though the scale itself isn’t all that common, there are some situations where you can use a bit of it for good effect, even if your improvisational line is based on a different scale.

The augmented triad is one of two chords in music that is perfectly symmetrical: a double whole step from C brings us to E, another double whole step brings us to G#, and one additional double whole step brings us back to C.

The other chord that’s perfectly symmetrical is the diminished seventh, written as C°7, or just C°. In this chord, you have a minor third between each note: C-Eb-Gb-Bbb (or A), and one more minor third brings us back to C.

All the scales we’ve looked at so far, except for the harmonic minor, have a whole step as the largest interval between notes. The most common exotic scale for improvising over a diminished seventh chord is called the diminished scale, but there are actually two different versions of it: the WH diminished (pronounced whole-half diminished) and the HW (half-whole) diminished.

Since a minor third is a whole step and a half step, if your chord contains only minor thirds you can add them in either order. A C WH diminished scale would be C-D-Eb-F-Gb-Ab-A-B-C; the HW scale would be C-Db-Eb-E-F#-G-A-Bb-C. Some people refer to these scales as “octatonic”, because they have eight tones in an octave.

Here’s a C WH diminished scale, starting in 8th position:

7-8-(10)
7-9-10
8-10
9-10-12
8-9-11
8-10-11

Notice we’ve got one stretch and one shift in that fingering. We could also do it with just one shift:

7-8-(10)
7-9-10
7-8-10
9-10
8-9-11
8-10-11

The HW diminished scale works out pretty much the same way, but with a little more moving around:

6-8-(9)
7-8-10
6-8-9
7-8-10
7-9-10
8-9-11

Next we’ve got a couple of scales that are from traditional styles of music. This one I could have presented earlier, right after the pentatonic (which is what I usually do in lesson) – it’s the blues scale, which is the minor pentatonic with the addition of a b5 note: 1-2-b3-4-b5-5-b7. Here’s the A blues scale in fifth position:

5-(8)
5-8
5-7-8
5-7
5-6-7
5-8

If you’re improvising blues with this, you might or might not fret the “blue note” or b5 – it’s pretty common to bend to it instead.

Then there’s the style of “Gypsy jazz”, like the music of Django Reinhardt. A common scale in this style is called the Gypsy minor scale; it’s the natural minor with a raised fourth, or 1-2-b3-#4-5-b6-b7. Here’s that scale in A, in 5th position:

5-(7)-(8)
5-7-8
5-7
5-7-9
6-7-8
5-7-8

You could do the same scale with a shift:

5-(7)-(8)
5-7-8
4-5-7
5-7
6-7-8
5-7-8

By now you’ve hopefully got a command of the most common scales, and if you’ve worked at it, an understanding of where the notes are on the fretboard. We’ve still got a lot of scales to cover, so from this point forward I’ll be outlining only the scale formulas, and leave it to you to find the fingerings. If you get lost, just go back to the major scale fingering patterns and adjust the notes to the formulas – if you find a lot of notes are out of position, shift the fingering forward or back.

The Hungarian minor scale, which is also known as the Gypsy minor or the double harmonic minor scale, has the pattern 1-2-b3-#4-5-b6-7. You might have noticed that I’ve already shown you a “Gypsy minor” scale – there’s no common naming system for scales, so sometimes the same name will be used for more than one scale. You’ll notice there are two places in the scale where there’s an augmented second (a three fret space): between the b3 and the #4, and again between the b6 and the 7. Since the only common scale that includes an augmented second is the harmonic minor, that’s led to this scale often being labeled the ‘double harmonic minor’ – having no common naming system, we can also end up with more than one name for the same scale!

Continuing the naming confusion a bit further, this isn’t the only Hungarian minor scale. The other one is 1-b2-b3-4-5-b6-7. It’s sort of a cross between the harmonic minor scale and the Phrygian scale, and it’s also called the Neopolitan minor scale, and some folks even call this the “Arabic” scale.

It’s not actually an Arabic scale, as the actual Arabian system is different from our 12 tone system… I’ll cover that at the end, along with scales from India, which is also outside our 12TET system (12 tone equal temperament) – our guitars are designed to produce 12TET tones, so these take some real work to achieve on the guitar.

You might also come across the Neopolitan major scale… but it’s the same as the Lydian mode. Exotic scales seem to have sprung up in many different styles of music, so there ends up being a lot of overlap in the names!

Some of our exotic scales are simple alterations of our common scales. The major/minor scale is a good example of that: it’s a natural minor scale with a major third, or 1-2-3-4-5-b6-b7.

Jazz has also given us a lot of scales, especially bebop jazz. Bebop scales have eight tones, with a passing note between two ‘normal’ scale tones. The scale that’s usually called the “bebop” scale is a cross between the major scale and the Mixolydian: 1-2-3-4-5-6-b7-7. This is also called the “bebop dominant” scale, because it includes the dominant chord tone of b7.

But we can put the half steps in other places, which gives us the Bebop Dorian: 1-2-b3-3-4-5-6-b7. That’s a cross between the Mixolydian and the Dorian scales.

We also have the Bebop Major, 1-2-3-4-5-b6-6-7. This scale works well over major 7th or major 6th chords.

If we lower the third of that scale, we get the Bebop Melodic Minor: 1-2-b3-4-5-b6-6-7.

Finally, we can lower the 3rd of the Bebop Dominant, and get the Bebop Harmonic Minor: 1-2-b3-4-5-6-b7-7. That’s a harmonic minor scale with the added b7.

Jazz also makes extensive use of altered dominant chords. If you’ve read my chord lessons, you might remember that dominant chords have a tension; altered dominant chords increase the tension by including notes altered from the underlying scale – substituting b5 or #5 for the fifth in the chord, or including the b9 or #9 note. These chords may be spelled out in the name, as in C7b9, or they may just be indicated on a chart as “C7alt”, leaving it up to the performer which non-scale tones to include.

Because these chords can include b9 (the same tone as b2), #9 (same as #2), b5 or #5, a scale that will work over any of them should contain those notes – as well as the root, third, and b7 common to dominant chords. The resulting scale is 1-b2-b3-b4-b5-b6-b7.

This one takes a bit of explaining to unravel the spelling – we want it to have just one of each letter name; the b3 is the same pitch as #2 (or #9). Having used a 3, the natural third from the chord ends up being spelled as a b4. b5 is there, as is b6 – that’s the same tone as #5. And the b7 is needed to blend with a dominant chord.

Compare this scale with the Locrian mode, which is 1-b2-b3-4-b5-b6-b7, and you’ll see it’s the Locrian with a lowered fourth. So this scale is sometimes called the “superlocrian” (which is how I first learned it), but a more common name is simply the “altered scale”.

Another big source of scales in music has been the deconstruction of chords used in specific tunes. If you take a chord like a m7b5, we have scale tones (I’ll show those in C): 1-b3-b5-b7. We’re missing 2, 4, and 6. We can fill those in with any tones from the scale, creating these:

1-b2-b3-b4-b5-b6-b7
1-b2-b3-b4-b5-6-b7
1-b2-b3-4-b5-b6-b7
1-b2-b3-4-b5-6-b7
1-2-b3-b4-b5-b6-b7
1-2-b3-b4-b5-6-b7
1-2-b3-4-b5-b6-b7
1-2-b3-4-b5-6-b7

Any of these scales will work over a m7b5 chord, since they each contain all of the chord tones. One (the 1-2-b3-4-b5-b6-b7) is used commonly enough to call it a “half diminished” scale, but in fact ALL of them can be considered half diminished scales!

Some composers will create a chord and build a piece around it. They’ll usually follow the same process I showed above, filling in the missing notes with possibilities from our chromatic scale. The resulting scales are often named after the piece the composer created that contains the chord…

The Prometheus scale comes from a symphonic work by Alexander Scriabin called “Prometheus: The Poem of Fire”. The chord can be spelled in several ways, but it’s often seen in fourths: C-F#-Bb-E-A-D. Arranging these in scale order, we get C-D-E-F#-A-Bb, or 1-2-3-#4-6-b7. To continue the naming confusion, the chord is also called the “mystic” chord – and the scale is naturally also called the mystic scale.

Igor Stravinsky wrote a ballet called “Petrushka”, and in it he used the Petrushka chord. It’s a foray into bitonality, with two different tonal centers at the same time… if you have two guitarists, and one plays a C major chord while the other plays an Gb major chord, the result is the Petrushka chord. Combining the notes C-E-G and Gb-Bb-Db gets us the scale C-Db-E-Gb-G-Bb.

That causes a little problem because we’ve got two G notes. Spelling the second chord enharmonically (as F# major, which is what Stravinsky actually did) gets us two C notes (C and C#). So the scale ends up being spelled as a mix of the two: C-Db-E-F#-G-Bb, or 1-b2-3-#4-5-b7. It’s also known as the “tritone” scale, because it’s made up of several notes that are a tritone, or three whole tones, apart: C-F#, Db-G, and E-Bb.

Tom (“Noteboat”) Serb is a longtime Guitar Noise contributor and founder of the Midwest Music Academyin Plainfield, Illinois. This advice first appeared in Volume 4 # 20 of Guitar Noise News. Sign-up for our newsletter to receive more free tips like this by email.

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Events Horizon – Wednesday, March 7, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:09:10 +0000

Is it possible that Spring is only two weeks away? That would mean that today is the March 7 edition of Guitar Noise’s Events Horizon, our weekly blog post where we do our best to catch you up on upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

Because, as you know, we at Guitar Noise believe that the true power, wonder and beauty of music comes when it gets shared with the world. So whenever you’re out playing, we’d really like to do is to help promote your shows, whether it’s in a stadium or at a ten-seat coffee house. Not only is it a great way to help support each other, it’s also a terrific way to meet more musicians!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Friday, March 9, 2012

The Sheryl Bailey 4, featuring extraordinary jazz guitarist Sheryl Bailey along with Mike Le Donne on piano, Gary Wang on bass and Joe Strasser on drums has a 9:30 and an 11:00 show at the Somers Point Jazz Festival, being held at the Sandi Pointe Coastal Bistro, 908 Shore Road in Somers Point, New Jersey. A definite treat for those who can make it!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Bob Alonge headlines tonight’s show for The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Music runs from 7 to 9 PM.

Doesn’t Madder returns to rock out George’s on the Lake, located at 101 North Catawba Avenue in Rhodhiss, North Carolina. Show starts at 9 PM and goes ’til midnight.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Friday, March 16, 2012

Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Parlor Saturday Concert Series, held at The Parlor, 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York, will have a 7 to 9 PM show by Craig Hancock.

The Fallen Starlets are part of a huge Saint Patrick’s Day Rock and Roll party at The A, 303 Crane Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The fun starts at 9 PM.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Events Horizon – Wednesday, February 29, 2012

David Hodge — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:02:10 +0000

I have no idea just how often this happens, or whether or not it will even happen again in my lifetime (although I’m sure that someone, somewhere probably has an app or a webpage for it, but welcome to the “Leap Day” edition of Guitar Noise’s Events Horizon, our weekly blog post where we do our best to catch you up on upcoming shows featuring members and friends of the Guitar Noise community, taking place all over the world. Or at least wherever and whenever people let us know they’re happening!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

The month of March kicks off with the weekly open mic at The Parlor, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Hosted by singer / songwriter, Marilyn Miller, it’s a very friendly atmosphere where people can play their own songs or play along with others. 7 to 9 PM, all ages welcome.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Life Is Drama has a full weekend! They’ll be rocking the house at Mullet’s Sports Bar, 14903 South Bell Road in Homer Glen, Illinois.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Tom McLaughlin and Life Is Drama wrap up a music-filled weekend with a show at Exit 197, which is at 952 West Reynolds Street in Pontiac, Illinois.

The Parlor, located at 734 Warren Street in Hudson, New York holds the first of The Parlor Saturday Concert Series with a 7 to 9 PM show by Chris Jones.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Friday, March 9, 2012

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Doesn’t Madder returns to rock out George’s on the Lake, located at 101 North Catawba Avenue in Rhodhiss, North Carolina. Show starts at 9 PM and goes ’til midnight.

We wish you the best with your shows as well as a great time at any show you can attend. Maybe you’ll get to meet some of your Guitar Noise friends in person at long last!

Peace

Will the Wind Ever Remember? – A Tribute to Steinar Gregertsen

David Hodge — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 04:51:14 +0000

The Internet can make the world smaller and more intimate. You can meet and exchange ideas with people from all over the world. You can listen to the music that someone took the time to create and share.

Steinar Gregertsen was all about sharing music, as well as his experiences, expertise and thoughts and observations. On the Guitar Noise Forums, as well as the Steel Guitar Forum, Steinar was both generous and helpful – always willing to answer questions and to offer what advice he could to anyone.

He began performing at a young age, first playing saxophone in marching band, then picking up both guitar and bass and playing with numerous local bands. As a musician, Steinar constantly evolved, absorbing knowledge and influences wherever he found them whether the blues and rock of his childhood or the North African and Arabian music he heard while living in Spain. He worked as a session player throughout the 80′s and 90′s and also gigged as oftern as four to five times a week. In 1995, he opened his own recording studio and also set up shop as a guitar teacher. He bought his first electric lap steel in 1999.

Since 2001, Steinar has been involved in numerous musical projects. He’s written, arranged, performed and recorded music for multimedia shows, ballet, televsion programs and commercials. His continuing explorations of the beauties of the lap steel guitar led to two breathtaking albums - Southern Moon Northern Lights and Standing Next to a Mountain, a tribute to his hero, Jimi Hendrix.

Steinar passed away Monday, February 27, 2012. We at Guitar Noise offer our condolences to his family and friends. And we thank him for sharing his music with us and with the world. We will miss him.

Peace

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales – Part 6

Tom Serb — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:29:06 +0000

Modes

Modes are probably the single most confusing element of music for guitarists. There’s a ton of mis-information out there, which just makes things worse. But they’re not that difficult to understand and use if they’re approached properly.

What we think of today as “modes” are simply scales. Several of them are very old – the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian modes were used in Gregorian chants written over 1500 years ago. At the time, they weren’t called “modes” (at the time, a mode was actually a rhythm!), but the word was first used in the 6th century by a theorist named Boethius in translating some 1st century Greek music theory. About 300 years later, a monk named Hucbald applied the term to the already existing church scales, and we’ve called them “modes” on and off since then.

The church modes were simply considered different scales that composers could use in creating chants. There wasn’t any relationship between them, and no one thought of them as the same notes. That changed in 1547, when a guy named Heinrich Glarens (or Henricus Glareanus as he called himself in Latin) realized that the four church modes and two secular scales – the major and natural minor – made use of the same notes. Glarens created all the confusion by organizing the six scales this way:

C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C = the major scale
D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D = the Dorian “mode”
E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E = the Phrygian “mode”
F-G-A-B-C-D-E-F = the Lydian “mode”
G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G = the Mixolydian “mode”
A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A = the natural minor scale

Since the four church scales had Greek names, Glarens decided the major and minor scales should also have Greek names; he called the major scale the “Ionian mode” and named the natural minor the “Aeolian mode”. He also theorized that there should be a scale which started with B:

B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B

Glarens called this one the “Locrian mode”. That’s pronounced “luh-cree-in”, “lock-ree-in” or “low-cree-in”; I use “lock-ree-in”, but I’ve heard different theory professors use all three… I suppose it depends on where you went to school! He quickly discarded the scale as useless in practice, but it remained a part of music theory.

On to how to use them… I first encountered a mention of modes in a book on rock guitar in the early 70s, accompanied with a brief explanation of Glaren’s classification and a few exercises. They seemed interesting, but it wasn’t enough information for them to actually be useful to me. Then I headed off to college, and modes were covered in a music history class – we had to learn the names of them, again by Glaren’s system: test questions included things like “which mode begins on the third note of a major scale?” I tried my best to use them on my guitar, but they really didn’t sound different from other scales.

Then I took improvisation lessons from Paul Zibits, who still teaches – he’s currently with California State University at Long Beach. I told him the problem I was having, and he told me I was doing it wrong – I was focusing on a related scale – trying to play F Lydian while I was thinking in C major, the “related” major scale. Since modes are scales, and scales relate their pitches to the key note, I needed to be thinking in F, not C. That’s the whole trick!

So let’s start by looking at the F major scale and the F Lydian scale:

F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F = F major
F-G-A-B-C-D-E-F = F Lydian

The only note that’s different is the B. Looking at Lydian as a scale formula, it’s 1-2-3-#4-5-6-7. All you have to do to play a Lydian scale is to take a major scale and raise the fourth note! Here’s how it would finger in second position:

(2)-(3)-(5)
(3)-(5)
2-4-5
2-4-5
(2)-3-5
(2)-(3)-(5)

And in fifth position, with a shift on the third and fourth strings:

5-7-8
5-7-8
4-5-7
4-5-7
5-7
(5)-(7)-8

I’m sure you can apply this logic to the other positions of the major scale.

The Mixolydian mode works out the same way:

G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G = G major
G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G = G mixolydian

This means the mixolydian scale is 1-2-3-4-5-6-b7, or the major scale with a flatted 7th. Here’s G Mixolydian in 2nd position:

1-3-5
3-5
2-4-5
2-3-5
2-3-5
(1)-3-5

There are two important things to take away from our look at modes so far:

1. Modes are just scales. If you’re going to relate them to something, relate them to a scale with the same key note; any other approach is extra thinking at best, and musically misleading at worst.

2. There’s no such thing as a “modal fingering”. We’ve already seen that in 2nd position you can play in C major (C Ionian), G Mixolydian, or F Lydian. We can actually play almost ANY mode in this position, and that’s going to be true anywhere on the guitar. If you’re thinking in fingerings, you’re not thinking in sound – so your results will probably seem mechanical.

Time for one quick detour – when I say you can play “almost” any mode in this position, some will be easy, some hard, just like the many varieties of the major scale fingering. The ones that will be impossible will be the ones that are “related” to Eb major. Because of the guitar’s tuning, none of the 2nd fret notes (F#/Gb, B, E, A, C#/Db, F#/Gb) are in the Eb major scale (Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C-D-Eb). I call this the “guitar’s gap”; each major scale has exactly one position (and possibly its octave) with no notes.

The remaining modes could also be compared to the major scale, but the ones that are left all have something in common – a flatted third. (The Ionian mode is the major scale, and the Aeolian mode is the natural minor; we’ve covered both of those earlier)

D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D = D major
D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D = D Dorian
1-2-b3-4-5-6-b7

E-F#-G#-A-B-C#-D#-E = E major
E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E = E Phrygian
1-b2-b3-4-5-b6-b7

B-C#-D#-E-F#-G#-A#-B = B major
B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B = B Locrian
1-b2-b3-4-b5-b6-b7

Since each of the remaining modes has a b3, I find it easiest to treat them as alterations of the natural minor scale.

D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C-D = D natural minor (relative to F major)
D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D = D Dorian

Compared to the natural minor, Dorian has a raised sixth. So if you want to play in A Dorian, just take the A natural minor and raise the sixth – make all your F notes sharp. Here’s fifth position:

5-(7)-(8)
5-7-8
5-7
5-7-9
5-7-9
5-7-8

Or you could shift on the fourth and third strings:

5-(7)-(8)
5-7-8
4-5-7
4-5-7
5-7
5-7-8

Next up is Phrygian:

E-F#-G-A-B-C-D-E = E natural minor (relative to G major)
E-F-G-A-B-C-D-E = E Phrygian

Compared to the natural minor, Phrygian has a b2. To play in A Phrygian, think in A minor, and flat the 2nd (B):

5-(6)-(8)
5-6-8
5-7
5-7-8
5-7-8
5-6-8

The final mode, Locrian, is the only one that requires changing two notes from the natural minor:

B-C#-D-E-F#-G-A-B = B natural minor (relative to D major)
B-C-D-E-F-G-A-B = B Locrian

There are two ways you can approach this one, mentally… you can either alter two tones from the natural minor scale, or if you’ve got the other modes down cold first (which I’d recommend), you can alter ONE note from the Phrygian – simply play Phrygian and flat the 5th. Here’s how A Locrian will shape up in fifth position:

5-(6)-(8)
6-8
5-7-8
5-7-8
5-6-8
5-6-8

Tom (“Noteboat”) Serb is a longtime Guitar Noise contributor and founder of the Midwest Music Academyin Plainfield, Illinois. This advice first appeared in Volume 4 # 19 of Guitar Noise News. Sign-up for our newsletter to receive more free tips like this by email.

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Events Horizon – May 23, 2012

Events Horizon – Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Events Horizon – Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Counterpoint – Part 2

More on Counterpoint

Counterpoint – Part 1

Events Horizon – Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Events Horizon – Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Building a Chord Vocabulary

Chord Spellings

Events Horizon – Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales – Part 9

Even More Exotic Scales!

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Events Horizon – Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Events Horizon – Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales – Part 8

Additional Exotic Scales

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Events Horizon – Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Events Horizon – Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales – Part 7

Exotic scales

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Events Horizon – Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Events Horizon – Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Will the Wind Ever Remember? – A Tribute to Steinar Gregertsen

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Scales – Part 6

Modes

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